Should the Wars in Israel and Ukraine Be Treated the Same?

 

Should the Wars in Israel and Ukraine Be Treated the Same?

Americans are divided over the wars in Israel and Ukraine and how much foreign aid should go to each of the countries. Victor Davis Hanson claimed that the wars are similar but different conflicts “in more ways than we can imagine.” He then proceeded to explain why they are similar yet different. 

Ukraine was invaded by a huge Russian state, with a population three-and-a-half times greater, a gross national product 10 times larger, and an area 30 times its size.

Hamas, by contrast, is a terrorist clique of about 50,000 to 70,000 gunmen and terrorist kingpins who run Gaza. It is dwarfed by the Israeli population (20 times larger), economy (27 times greater), and area (60 times larger).

Most of Europe, the United States, and the West understandably supported arming Ukraine to repel Vladimir Putin’s Russian aggression.

By contrast, such support for democratic Israel was strangely mixed.

In many elite political, academic and media circles, Israel is criticized for its massive retaliation after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

The Western attitude towards the two wars grows even more inconsistent, if not incoherent.

There are constant calls for Israel to be “proportionate” in Gaza following the massacres of nearly 1,200 Jes, the vast majority civilians.

But Westerners understandably seek to give Ukraine more and better arms than Russia to ensure a disproportionate response necessary to win the war.

Israel is faulted for collateral damage from its efforts to destroy Hamas – even though terrorists are burrowed in and beneath hospital, mosques and schools.

Hanson’s article is much longer with even more reasons for the difference between the two wars. He explained that Hamas launches rockets into Israel without any warning, but Israel is expected to drop leaflets into Gaza to warn the Gazan civilians to stay out of the area. In the other war, no Westerner expects Ukraine to warn civilians in either occupied Ukraine or across the border in Russia of impending attacks. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blasted for its “disproportionate” retaliation in Gaza.

Netanyahu is watched closely by Americans “for any sign of absolutist rule or failure to create” the right type of Cabinet. Yet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has actually “suspended elections during the war but also declared martial law over his entire country.”

Hanson continued his explanation by recognizing that “Zelenskyy remains a rock star in the West,” while Israel “has not declared martial law” but “has formed a bipartisan coalition government with members of the opposition.”

According to Hanson, the media and politicians in the Western world “discount Russian propaganda … especially its unsubstantiated claims of relative Russian and Ukrainian casualties or Ukrainian setbacks or atrocities.” Yet, “many of these same Westerners oddly take Hamas’ casualty totals at face value” even to believing that “the Islamic jihad rocket that hit a Gazan hospital was an Israeli bomb.” Hanson stated that “Hamas has proven to be no more honest, and perhaps far more inaccurate, than even Russia state-controlled media.”

So, why are there so many “strange disconnects in Western attitudes toward these two wars?”

Here are Hanson’s reasons: It has nothing to do with who started the war or which country is more democratic or the most atrocities. It is about the rising of antisemitism in the West. Hamas’ killers are romanticized as “freedom fighters” while all Russians are considered as villains. “Middle East oil money and massive immigration into Western countries dwarf the influence of an ailing Russia.” Therefore, “Left-wing politicians in Europe and the U.S.” court Muslim nations while not worrying about the Russian lobby.

This means that the disconnect continues and “grows into absurdity.”